Just next to her, a round, middle-aged face surfaced from behind a USA Today. With deepening, fresh wrinkles, he glanced and gruntled, “In this park we only speak English!”

The mother turned slightly. Taking a cookie from a Mickey Mouse tupperware, she calmly said, “I’m sorry sir. In this park you only speak English. We speak Spanish and English, and perhaps some French or Portuguese if we really try.”

The stranger had no language to reply. He again sank his face into his paper’s sports pages.